Popcorn is mass-produced for sale at movies and other events in commercial popcorn poppers which typically include an enclosed, transparent cabinet containing a tilt-able kettle suspended above a catch area or platform. The kettle is heated and uncooked popcorn kernels are placed therein to be cooked and popped. Once the kernels are popped, the kettle is manually or automatically tilted and the popped popcorn spills onto the platform to be scooped up, packaged, and sold to customers.
This process can be highly labor-intensive for an operator of the popping machine, especially when consecutive batches of popcorn need to be cooked by the popping machine. For example, in conventional systems the operator must remain at the machine to monitor cooking progress and take actions such as loading of kernels or dumping of popped popcorn during a popping cycle, in order to assure that the popcorn in each batch is cooked consistently so as to provide high quality optimal taste from batch to batch. Conventional systems often rely on the experience of the operator to time actions correctly, which can lead to undercooking or burning of popcorn when the popping cycle is not carried out correctly. These problems with conventional systems and methods become even more exacerbated when producing a more complicated popped popcorn like sweetened popcorn.
The type of popcorn which most often tends to be mass-produced and sold is made from a type of popcorn kernel known as traditional “butterfly” type popcorn. When popped, such butterfly type popcorn takes the form of a highly irregular shape, with extending tendrils, which may be easily broken off when agitated or tumbled. In the popcorn industry, it is known to provide a variety of methods and apparatus for optimizing the popping of traditional butterfly type popcorn. For example, popping of traditional butterfly type popcorn is believed to be optimized in a time period of about 3 minutes (or longer, such as in versions requiring a sweetened coating) and at kettle temperatures approaching about 400° F. Of course, specific parameters and time or temperature set points can vary based on the desires of a particular operator or end product (popped popcorn).
In view of the largely prolific nature of butterfly type popcorn in the popcorn industry, numerous apparatus and methods for popping butterfly type popcorn have been developed as set forth above. To this end, several types of butterfly type popcorn popping machines and methods developed by the assignee of the present application are disclosed, for example, in numerous issued U.S. Patents including U.S. Pat. No. 6,352,731 to Weiss; U.S. Pat. No. 6,534,103 to Weiss; U.S. Pat. No. 6,726,945 to Weiss; U.S. Pat. No. 6,829,982 to Weiss et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 8,216,622 to Evans, Sr. et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,582 to Weiss, all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The U.S. Pat. No. 6,534,103 specifically discloses an apparatus for popping butterfly type popcorn in a typical process for “salt” popcorn and in a different temperature controlled process where the popcorn is to be “sweet” by being coated with a “sweet” coating such as sugar. In this regard, it is known from this reference that different cooking times and temperature parameters may be desirable and selected by an operator depending on the type of coating applied to the popped popcorn. However, these machines and methods still rely heavily on the operator for appropriate management of actions such as when to load the kernels, oil, and seasoning into the kettle and when to dump the popped popcorn when a popping cycle is completed.
More recently, a different type of popcorn kernel known as “mushroom” type popcorn has become popular for use and sale in the popcorn industry. The mushroom type popcorn differs in appearance, content and performance when compared to butterfly type popcorn.
More particularly respecting appearance, the popped mushroom type popcorn has a relatively smoother surface and therefore forms fewer crevices than butterfly popcorn. This allows the mushroom type popcorn to be tumbled for effective coating purposes without risking tendril-like portions (often formed on butterfly type popcorn) from breaking off during the tumbling process. Also, mushroom type popcorn, when prepared as a popped popcorn, is believed to have more gelatin content, which is not so melted as the gelatin in butterfly type popcorn according to the understanding of the inventor of this application, making popped mushroom type popcorn generally chewier than the less gelatinous popped butterfly type popcorn. The melting and/or explosion of the gelatin in butterfly type popcorn may be one factor that contributes to forming the irregular shape of the butterfly type popcorn, producing its less gelatinous and less chewy nature in the popped corn state than for mushroom type popcorn. In this regard, mushroom type popcorn should be cooked using a different set of cooking temperature and time parameters based on these differentiating factors to result in optimal and desirable popped popcorn.
In other words, it has been discovered that subjecting mushroom type popcorn to cooking temperatures and times associated with popping butterfly type popcorn tends to ruin mushroom type popcorn by melting more gelatin and causing the kernels to explosively expand, producing tendrils, irregular shapes and a more brittle product than desired with mushroom type popcorn. Such irregular shapes can also be less desirable for coating popped popcorn, both because of the risk of breaking off tendrils when popcorn is shaped irregularly and because there may be less surface area to pick up and retain the coating. Non-optimal cooking times and temperatures applied to mushroom popcorn may also cause less expansion of the popcorn when popped, which is not as desirable for coating. Likewise, subjecting butterfly type popcorn kernels to cooking temperatures and times appropriate for mushroom type popcorn will result in not optimal cooking and popping of the butterfly type popcorn. Particularly in environments where multiple types of popcorn may be desired in different cooking batches (e.g., a retail popcorn setting), with optional alternating sweet and salt coatings as well, there is no currently known popping machine or method for handling these variations.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a popping machine and method for cooking different types of popcorn kernels, including mushroom type popcorn and butterfly type popcorn, to the optimal specifications desired for each. Moreover, it would also be desirable to provide operators with accurate prompts to help run the machine in different operating modes, including those requiring addition of sugar or a sweetened coating at a specific time when those components will not burn in the kettle.